Please Forgive Me
by Jezebel
Summary: WARNING EXTREME ANGST. My first ever HP fic. After history repeats itself, an old friend looks back...


Please Forgive Me  
  
Author: Jezebel (imfromupnorth@yahoo.com)  
Rating: PG, PG-13ish  
Category: Uh, angst? H/G  
  
  
  
OK, I have no clue why I wrote this. It's depressing in a   
makes-me-want-to-commit-suicide kinda way, and while what I   
normally write *is* angsty, it just ain't on this level, ya know   
what I mean?  
  
Oh, and please take pity on me, and leave a review! I have never   
written an HP fic before and I really need to know, honestly, if   
it's any good.   
  
  
  
The two caskets lie side by side.  
  
One's just a little shorter than the other. It's barely   
noticeable, really, but then, Ginny was never very tall. She took   
after her mother in the height department.   
  
I assume that Molly Weasley was as attractive as Ginny in her   
younger years. To look at her today, though, you'd never know it.   
This is the fourth child she's lost to an ongoing war. She's   
sixty years old, and unlike most witches, she looks every day of   
it. Her face is ravaged. And after these last few years, I don't   
think she's got any tears left to cry for her dead children. Her   
eyes are bone-dry, her face stony.  
  
I wonder if she blames my son.  
  
He was my son, really. I never had any others, and he never had   
another father. When I heard, it was almost the same as the last   
time, with his real father. Twenty-one years prior.  
  
The house looked as though it had been attacked with a Muggle bomb.   
Only this time, there was no baby crying in the wreckage. The   
baby was unborn. No one had even known that Ginny was carrying,   
but when they brought her body out of the smoldering ruins, it was   
obvious. Whatever spell she'd been casting on herself to hide it   
was gone.   
  
This time, though, there was no rage in me, no desire to kill   
whatever man had betrayed them this time. I was too old and too   
tired. Just past forty, and I felt older than Dumbledore.   
  
I steal a glance at Molly again. Each of the worn lines in her   
face reminds me of a tragedy I know she's experienced.  
  
Bill's death, six years prior. Then, two years after that, Fred   
and Arthur, lost together. Last year, Percy. And now her baby,   
her only girl.  
  
If I close my eyes I can still see them dancing at their wedding.   
It was a bright spot in the middle of the darkness, a happy   
occasion in the midst of horror. They had chosen a sappy Muggle   
song as "their" song, but watching them together, swaying gently   
to the music, was enough to bring tears to the eyes of everyone   
in the room.  
  
I remember one point, where Harry mouthed the words to Ginny,   
smiling down at her. "Please forgive me, I can't stop loving   
you." Then he'd leaned down to kiss her sweetly, both of them   
smiling through the kiss, their eyes closed.  
  
I know I have to get away from these memories, even if they're   
all I have left. I glance to Molly's side. Yet another child   
is missing. He's in hiding, unable to attend the funeral of   
his younger sister and his best friend.   
  
Ron Weasley personally assassinated five suspected Death Eaters   
the day after he found out. He had to go into hiding so quickly   
that his fiancee, Hermione, couldn't go with him. She's here,   
her face slack, her eyes filled with tears that refuse to fall   
down her pretty pale cheeks. She glances up across the gravesite   
at Molly, and her chin quivers, but she refuses to let the tears   
fall.  
  
Molly's other children are here to support her. George holds one   
of her arms, still looking somehow incomplete without his second   
half. Charlie stands alone a few feet from her, looking none too   
young himself. He's several years younger than I am. He's never   
married, never had children, and looking at the twin coffins, I   
can understand why.  
  
As I close my eyes and listen to the ceremony, I keep hearing   
their wedding song. "So if you're feeling lonely, don't..."  
  
I can't help but feel lonely. I've lost everyone I love to this   
war. Every time I think it can't get worse, it does. Losing my   
parents, my two best friends, betrayal, Azkaban, losing Janie, and   
now the only child I've ever known, along with his wife and my   
future grandson. If only they'd gone into hiding sooner. If only   
they'd never conceived a child.  
  
"As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death..." I can   
barely hear the words, not that it matters. We held this Muggle   
funeral for the sake of the good Muggles who sheltered Harry and   
Ginny these past months. It's clear from the looks on their faces   
that they had no clue who they were really guarding, or why they   
died under mysterious circumstances. They don't realize that   
they're lucky they weren't murdered as well.  
  
These lives have to mean something. These smootly hewn wooden   
caskets must have some meaning, somewhere. The two...no, three,   
I remind myself...lives that ended so suddenly have to count   
for something. The Boy who Lived can't have died in vain.  
  
As I look around, at the young lives destroyed, at the family   
beyond tears, so far into pain...I vow that he won't have.  
  
  
  
  



End file.
